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Wednesday, 8 February 2017

Corruption:62 Houses Seized From Female officer-Nta

Mr. Ekpo Nta, Chairman Independent Corrupt
Practices and other related offences Commission, says the commission had so far
seized 62 houses from a female public officer within the last quarter toward
these year.

According to him, the matter is in
the court and the property will be confiscated by the Federal Government after
litigation.

The ICPC chairman revealed this
while fielding questions from journalists at the Akwa Ibom Anti-Corruption
Summit in Uyo on Tuesday.

He said, “How would the commission
address unexplained wealth by public officers? The commission has a mandate to
ask anybody to explain the source of his or her wealth. The commission has the
power to issue an interim seizure order to any public officer to explain the
source of their wealth.

“Through that order, the commission
has seized 62 houses from one female officer, the matter is still in court and
the property will be confiscated by the FG after litigation.”

Nta, who spoke on the theme, “Transparency
and

Accountability: A Panacea for Good
Governance and Sustainable Development,” said the anti-corruption war had yielded
good results in the country.

He cautioned public office holders
not to live above their incomes.

Nta said, “There are many facets of
corruption in Nigeria. The commission will stop at nothing to bring anyone
found to have contravened the anti-corruption crusade to book.”

He noted that the commission had
retrieved 40 vehicles that were stolen by some retired directors of the Federal
Ministry of Water Resources and warned against trivializing the anti-graft war.

Nta explained that the commission
was prosecuting over 400 corruption cases in different courts in the country,
noting that those found guilty at the end of the trial would be made to face
the full wrath of the law.

He added that the commission had
taken a step further by launching the anti-corruption campaign in institutions
of higher learning and among the members of the National Youth Service Corps.

He said that an anti-corruption
module had long been introduced into the curriculum of the University of
Calabar, maintaining that such a measure would go a long way in entrenching
moral values in students.

Nta explained that the ICPC had
inaugurated anti-corruption clubs in orientation camps, noting that such
measures had assisted the commission in detecting and arresting about 42 fake
corps members at orientation camps recently.

The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr.
Udom Emmanuel, lamented that corruption had eaten deep into the fabrics of the
Nigerian society.

Emmanuel advised all and sundry to
be in the vanguard of curbing the menace of corruption if the country must move
forward.

“We must change our mindsets about
the way we do things in the country,” Emmanuel said.

The governor frowned on what he
described as illicit cash running into over $157bn leaving the shores of
Nigeria through fraudulent practices.

He identified corruption as the
greatest enemy of development, noting that the repatriation of illicit funds
across Nigeria’s borders to developed nations was regrettable.

He said if such funds were used
within the shore of the country, the socio-economic life of Nigeria would have
been positively impacted.